meleebrawler
Smash Hero
Almost all of Ness's ground moves suck. He mainly just uses aerials until you crack from the pressure and let him grab you.He has a ZAir, that's a plus over Ness. His PK Fire... is it a plus over Ness? I wouldn't really say so. In Brawl maybe, but Ness's PK Fire sets up for a lot of combos that Lucas could use. PK Fire to grab, anyone? That's something Lucas desperately needs. The spacing on the PK Fire is a plus... but overall, it doesn't quite benefit Lucas in a way that you would like it to. His only reliably kill moves are BAir and UThrow. All of his smashes are slow except for FSmash but there's no way to set up into them.
PK Magnet is better than Ness's.
His recovery is a definite plus. But his PK Thunder can't be used on the ground at all due to the high endlag and the fact that it opponents can be knocked out of the PK Thunder and into Lucas for an easy punish (since it's multihit, it doesn't end when it hits the opponent so usually the opponent can escape while Lucas is still in PKT mode. Easy punish when you factor in the endlag on top of that). If you PKT2 on the ground, you'll likely go so far that it kills you because it doesn't stop on shield or contact with anything, really. Also, PKT2 doesn't kill until like 130%. No juggles, no early kills, no ground mindgames. On top of not being able to kill. It's only good for recovery and nothing else. Kinda like his tether grab, the worst in the game.
His Nair is good, but none of them have the kill power or utility of Ness's. Even his UAir, which can kill, seemingly only has more range than Jigglypuff's Rest.
I actually play Lucas. But even I can see that there's no reason to use him over Ness, just like there's no real reason to use Dark Pit over Pit (though I do think Dark Pit is actually better in customs). I just think he's fun to play with and I refuse to use Ness because my rival uses Ness.
Lucas could actually use a lot of the things Ness has, like Ness's PK Fire, and Lucas's PKT2 has all the nerfs in terms of damage and multihit that Ness's has (why wouldn't Lucas's hit harder if it's slower, meaning easier to read, has more endlag, meaning more dangerous to use, and can't be use for juggles?).
Lucas has defensive options with the Magnet, PKT on recovery, and the spacing on PKF, yes... but in what ways do those things improve his game as a character? Ness doesn't do damage on his Magnet but it was buffed to have much less endlag, he can use PKT for juggling, deterring approaches, tacking damage on off-stage, protecting himself from edgeguards, etc, while Lucas is only good for recovery and almost ungimpable (and Ness's PKT2 is already near ungimpable just due to the fact that if your opponent whiffs, they die. Even though Lucas's is harder to penetrate, you won't get punished very badly for trying). And with the new multihit mechanics in this game, Ness's PK Fire is superior to Lucas's when you look at its total utility, and when you look at how much Lucas needs Ness's PK Fire to set up for his terrible tether which can't even grab out of shield. Lucas's PK Fire is great... until you realize you'd rather the opponent be trapped in place and racking up damage so you can set-up your stringer moves instead of blown back.
So yeah, besides killing with PK Magnet sometimes, what exactly does Lucas do better than Ness? Lucas's game revolves around a spacing PK Fire and a grab that just isn't going to grab very often. Ness's game can revolve around any parts of his whole moveset.
So PK Thunder sucks in general? (You can still get edgeguard kills with it by stage spiking) Try PK Freeze instead for long-ranged harassment. Works great for catching landings too and definitely has more utility than Flash. And just because the risk is high for attempting to stop Ness's recovery doesn't make it harder, heck sometimes even your failure causes him to die as your body cuts his momentum.
Lucas's game is that of punishment. He has all the tools needed to make opponents pay dearly for their mistakes, though as you've said he doesn't indeed have ways to guarantee that they land. So his goal is to make himself extremely difficult
to approach and hit and frustrate the opponent into making those mistakes. And if Lucas gets the lead, you'd better believe Lucas will do everything in his power to ensure it stays that way.
Look, no matter what you say Lucas is not obsoleted by Ness any more than any other lower-tiered character
because what he tries to do is completely different.